So, This summer I plan on building our robot at home, so we can get a nice head start on the season, but this will be my first time working at home over the summer, and I want to get some more info on what and what not to do.
Should I bring an entire field home? The only place I can set up a full field is under my outside patio, can you set up fields outdoors, or will that mess them up? I live in soCal, so no worries with the weather, but is it good to set up a field outside, or should I just set up a half field in my room? Also, how much should I bring home? Should I only take a box of random metal and gears and whatnot, or should I pretty much bring home my entire supply of parts? Another thing, for teams that have successfully done summer build sessions before, are there any tips to make things easier?
We built during the summer and an important step was prototyping a lot, so definitely get most of your parts. Field wise: all we really needed were flags since we were focused on a shooting bot and a few game objects. So having the full field isn’t that mandatory but depending on the game that might change. A recommended option would be a partial field or mostly just foam tiles for the robot to drive on.
What I plan on doing is planning and cadding my robot completely out the remaining days of school after the reveal is out so I know what parts I need (and a few extra just incase things go wrong or I want to try another idea) and then building it at home over summer break. I think that would be the best solution to your parts question because you might forget something vital, I’ve done it plenty of times without a list. I’d say like a half field in your room, if it’s anything like starstruck like predicted you might only need half.
I plan to do the same type of thing (as we discussed), but I don’t think I’ll have a field in time. I’m just going to pack up all of my usual parts. I did some math on my robot this year to figure out what stuff I use the most. I’ll probably bring a bit of everything.
A half field would probably be fine since you aren’t practicing driving unless you plan on going to comps early season. I would also do lots of prototyping. This really helped our team over the summer since we tried a flywheel and a double catapult. Prototyping over the summer helped us find a design we liked for the season.
We have talked about having some planning and brainstorming sessions starting in May to get a good understanding of the game and what will be required and decide on what to prototype and test. Then we can start building in June after school lets out. We are an independent team anyway, so our parts are always home 
In Michigan there seems to be a scrimage event in late August that we most likely will go to so we can see other bots and learn how things work. The real season seems to start in October, so after the August event, we have a month or two to get things started to tweak and setup.
We are looking forward to a good season next year.
The MCCC/Monroe County Fair tournament is on August 3, 2019. It’s gone back-and-forth between a qualifier (Excellence award, at least) and a scrimmage. But there’s no better way to learn the rules and begin developing strategies, not to mention testing out early designs, than to do a competition. I guess it’s kind of far from California, but Monroe is in driving distance for Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. There’s a Hotel with a “Splash Universe” in Dundee (10 minutes away) to stay at, and we give all registered teams free tickets to the fair. The biggest event in the evening is a Combine Demolition Derby!
I’m in Ohio, but it wouldn’t qualify me for my State. I might just have to wait until October, judging by how the season schedule went this year.
In 2018, it didn’t qualify for any state, it was just a scrimmage. But the chance at getting a state qualification isn’t the only reason to go to an event…
Agreed. But driving up to Michigan isn’t exactly what I intend to do early season. It makes more sense to me to have a better robot that I spent more time on for my first actual event than to stress about a scrimmage.
(Though I did watch the match vids online last year.)
We bring the whole field to a house, but that’s only because we have room and the school was rennovating. If you can’t, a half field will do just fine.
Definitely bring all your parts. You never know what you will come up with in your prototyping.
One tip, if working with friends, make sure VEX is actually what you’re meeting about, not just getting together. A few of our sessions just turned into playing Risk and chatting, not Vex.
Early August? My mistake. I thought it was late. Regardless, I’m sure the girls will see you there.
For sure, it will be our shake down to see how things work, learn the game and our robot and what needs to be “adjusted”.
The risk of seeing something shiny is always great…
Depending on the game you should either bring half of the field or all of the field. Also you should honestly bring everything home if your mentor allows you to.